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Huckabee defends his handling of anti-Romney ad
2008-01-01
With two days left in a tight Iowa race, Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee defended on Tuesday his unorthodox and heavily criticized handling of an attack ad against rival Mitt Romney. Huckabee, locked in a tight Republican race with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, said he did not regret Monday's news conference in which he announced he would not run a television ad critical of Romney -- then showed it to reporters, ensuring its accusations got a wide airing. "I expected to get criticism," the former Arkansas governor told reporters in Cedar Rapids. "This is a big boys' game and so you take your lumps." A new Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll of Iowa, taken before Huckabee's news conference, showed him opening a four-point lead over Romney, 29 percent to 25 percent, with Arizona Sen. John McCain in third with 12 percent. Among Democrats, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton maintained a four-point edge over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, 30 percent to 26 percent, with former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards at 25 percent. A new Des Moines Register poll gave Obama a slight edge on Clinton. Huckabee said he decided not to run the ad because he wanted to set a more positive tone for the campaign, which has featured harsh exchanges with Romney over their respective records as governors. "I have no regret at all about pulling the ad. I slept well last night and woke up this morning feeling even better about it. It was the right decision," Huckabee said, drawing cheers from supporters. Critics and rivals called it hypocrisy. "It does remind you a bit of a person who stands up and says I'm not gonna call my opponent any names but here's the names I'd call him if I were gonna call him names," Romney told reporters in Johnston, Iowa. "I don't think it will fool the people of Iowa. His approach to the campaign has been anything but positive and I don't think people will think of it as a positive approach," he said. The contest in Iowa opens the state-by-state battle to choose candidates for the November presidential election. The Democratic caucus opens at 6:30 p.m. central time (7:30 EST, 0030 GMT), with Republicans starting 30 minutes later. Results could begin to appear within an hour or two. NO HOLIDAY The first day of the year was hardly a holiday for presidential candidates in Iowa, who spent the day crisscrossing the state to drum up support before the first big test of the presidential nominating race on Thursday. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards planned a 36-hour marathon campaign sprint to Thursday. Romney visited a series of parties where supporters were watching college football bowl games on the New Year's holiday. Clinton hopped a plane to make quicker time crossing the state. "It really matters whether you go to the caucus Thursday night because the entire country is going to be watching. The world is going to be watching," Clinton said at a campaign stop in Ames, Iowa. All of the campaigns planned a mammoth get-out-the-vote operation to identify supporters and make sure they get out to the caucuses, which require voters to turn out on what promises to be a cold night and join with their neighbors to declare their support. "The polls look good. But understand this. The polls are not enough. The only thing that counts is whether or not you show up for caucus," Obama said in Des Moines. "Make the phone calls and knock on the doors and grab your friends and grab your neighbors and say it is time for us to deliver on change," he said. Under arcane rules in the Iowa contest, Democratic contenders are required to muster support from at least 15 percent of attendees in each precinct to be considered viable. Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich urged his supporters in Iowa to back Obama if Kucinich did not meet the 15 percent threshold. Huckabee announced he would leave Iowa on Wednesday to head to California and appear on "The Tonight Show" hosted by Jay Leno on NBC. "It's a great opportunity for me to talk to Iowa as well as the rest of the country. My guess is that a lot of people in Iowa are watching Jay Leno, probably more than would come to a rally," he said. He will return to Iowa after the taping. (Additional reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst, Andy Sullivan, Deborah Charles; writing by John Whitesides) (For more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)
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